The Memory Palace: A Memoir

Bartok, Mira

ISBN 10: 1452600252 ISBN 13: 9781452600253

Publisher: Tantor Media Inc, 2011

Synopsis

When piano prodigy Norma Herr was healthy, she was the most vibrant personality in the room. But as her schizophrenic episodes became more frequent and more dangerous, she withdrew into a world that neither of her daughters could make any sense of. After being violently attacked for demanding that Norma seek help, Mira Bartok and her sister changed their names and cut off all contact in order to keep themselves safe. For the next seventeen years, Mira's only contact with her mother was through infrequent letters exchanged through post office boxes, often not even in the same city where she was living. At the age of forty, Mira suffered a debilitating head injury that leaves her memories foggy and her ability to make sense of the world around her forever changed.Hoping to reconnect with her past, Mira reached out to the homeless shelter where her mother is living. When she received word that her mother was dying in a hospital, Mira and her sister traveled to their mother's deathbed to reconcile one last time. Norma gave them a key to a storage unit in which she has kept hundreds of diaries, photographs, and mementos from the past that Mira never imagined she would see again. These artifacts triggered a flood of memories and gave Mira access to the past that she believed had been lost forever.The Memory Palace explores the connections between mother and daughter that cannot be broken no matter how much exists-or is lost-between them. It is an astonishing literary memoir about the complex meaning of love, truth, and the capacity for forgiveness within a family.

About this title

Review:

"A heartbreaking, exquisitely told story of a daughter's struggle to find beauty and order in the distorted, chaotic world created by her mother's delusions."--Jeannette Walls, bestselling author of "The Glass Castle "and "Half Broke Horses"

""The Memory Palace" is almost a fairy tale: two little girls grow up under the spell of their mother's madness. But it really did happen, once upon a time, and Mira Bartok uses her considerable powers of recollection and compassion to understand her family and to present them to readers as complete, loved human beings. This is an extraordinary book." -Audrey Niffenegger, author of "The Time Traveler's Wife" and "Her Fearful Symmetry"

."..a haunting, almost patchwork, narrative that lyrically chronicles a complex mother-daughter relationship. "--"Publishers Weekly", starred review

"A disturbing, mesmerizing personal narrative about growing up with a brilliant but schizophrenic mother...Richly textured, compassionate and heartbreaking." --"Kirkus", starred review

"The Memory Palace" is not so much a palace of memories as a complex web of bewitching verbal and visual images, memories, dreams, true stories and rambling excerpts from the author's mentally ill mother's notebooks. It is an extraordinary mix. --"The Washington Post"

."..like the cabinet of wonders that is a frequent motif here, Bartok's memory palace contains some rare, distinctive and genuinely imaginative treasures. " --"The""New York Times Book Review"

"A book of aching beauty and compassion, that circles around the essence of what it is to be alive." --Nick Flynn, author of "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" and "The Ticking is the Bomb: A Memoir"

"In lyrically elegant prose, "The Memory Palace" explores not just relationships but the slippery nature of memory itself." -"O" magazine

"Mira Bartok's "Memory Palace" is a beautifully crafted tale of life with an absent father and a mentally ill mother. As the story unfolds, you'll see how fine the line is between gentle artistic creativity and debilitating madness. With each new vignette, Mira reveals the wonder and the horror of life in a house ruled by insanity. As the daughters get older, the mother devolves, making her way from world-class musician to paranoid homeless schizophrenic. Despite that tragedy, Mira's spirit never fails to shine through. You'll wish you could pick her up, like a little lost kitten, but in the end, she makes it on her own." --John Elder Robison, author of "Look Me in the Eye"

Bartok juggles a handful of profound themes: how to undertake a creative life ...how we remember ...how one says goodbye to a loved one in a manner that might redeem in some small way a life and a relationship blighted by psychosis; and, most vividly and harrowingly, how our society and institutions throw mental illness back in the hands of family members, who are frequently helpless to deal with the magnitude of the terrifying problems it generates. On all counts, it's an engrossing read." --"Elle"

About the Author:

Mira Bartók is a Chicago-born artist and writer and the author of twenty-eight books for children. Her writing has appeared in several literary journals and anthologies and has been noted in the Best American Essays series.
Hillary Huber garners consistently glowing reviews for her audio work. She has earned several Audie Award nominations, including for A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read, and she is also an AudioFile Earphones Award winner. AudioFile magazine says, "Hillary Huber's narration is lyrical enough to be set to music."

About this edition

• Publisher: Tantor Media Inc
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1452600252
• ISBN 13: 9781452600253
• Binding: Audio CD